Friday, June 25, 2010

The Sorceress of the Hound

Among vacations, a no-sleeping child and many things to do, I didn't update here for a while. Anyway, in April I got a commission from a colleague and friend of mine, who owns a caravan and some competition dogs together with another girl. They asked me to draw a decal, which should be 100 x 30 cm, and be put on their caravan.

There must be written "LC witch on the way", in Swedish since this is their nickname in the world of dogs competitions. It should also represent a self-confident witch mastering two dogs of defined breed (afghan and whippet), which must be also easily recognisable from the picture. The dogs would like to run after a hare, but the sorceress would not let them go as they want.

She provided me with own photo references of the dogs, while the witch is not intended to look like the girls.

My idea was to use a cartoon style, since it's ironic and requires strong colours and shapes, which could be seen on the way by other cars. This was a very interesting and funny challenge for me, since I'm not really a cartoonist.

The first idea was to use a Disney-like approach, so this was the first sketch of the witch, plus the whippet:

I wasn't really satisfied with the characters, since they weren't coherent with each other, anatomy was annoyingly bad and the whole concept non that funny.

After some weeks I got a completely different approach, so this is the final result:

The sorceress haircut recalls the afghan ears and tail, as well hers slim arms should resemble the thin complexion of the whippet hound. She doesn't need to make such an effort to held the running dogs, since a couple of magic hands is working for her. On the other way, the hare is very aware of the situation and takes its time to drink a cocktail. The background contains very few and simple elements inspired by the swedish landscape (mushrooms, blueberries and fir forest), and is dark to highlight the magic thunderbolt and the dogs.
My friend said she was satisfied with the work and concept (for them, dogs anatomy was an important issue), hope they like it... for me, I had a lot of fun doing it.

2 comments:

I love it! so fun, i bet it will look great on the caravan, you can tell that you had great fun doing it too. hope you are managing to get some sleep, my child sleepless nights went on for far too long & so i have lots of sympathy x

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I used to paint in a traditional way, as a hobby. After I met my boyfriend, I tried his Wacom tablet. This place collects my work-in-progress, from level zero to...we'll see.

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About Me

Officially, a Chemist. When I was 14 I had to choose between Science and Art: I chose the first, but practising the second in my free time.I'm not a professional so I can paint only when my real job and my child do let me. But, I love do it!